In 1893 a young Frederick Jackson Turner stood before the American Historical Association and delivered his famous frontier thesis. To a less than enthusiastic audience, he argued that "the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development"; that this frontier accounted for American democracy and character; and that the frontier had closed forever with uncertain consequences for the American future. Despite the indifference of Turner's first audience, his essay would soon prove to be the single most influential piece of writing on American history, with extraordinary impact both in intellectual circles and in popular literature. Within a few years his views had become the dominant interpretation of the American past. A collection of his essays won the Pulitzer Prize, and for almost half a century, Turner's thesis was the most familiar model taught in schools, extolled by politicians, and screened in fictional form at local movie theaters each Saturday afternoon. Now, a hundred years after Turner's famous address, award-winning biographer John Mack Faragher collects and introduces the pioneer historian's ten most significant essays. Remarkable for their truly modern sense that a debate about the past is simultaneously a debate about the present, these essays remain stimulating reading, both as a road map to the early-twentieth-century American mind and as a model of committed scholarship. Faragher introduces us to Turner's work with a look at his role as a public intellectual and his effect on Americans' understanding of their national character. In the afterword, Faragher turns to the recent heated debate over Turner's legacy. Western history has reemerged in the news as historians argue over Turner's place in our current mind-set. In a world of dizzying intellectual change, it may come as something of a surprise that historians have taken so long to overturn the interpretation of a century-old conference paper. But while some claim that Turner's vision of the American West as a great egalitarian land of opportunity was long ago dismissed, others, in the words of historian Donald Worster, maintain that Turner still "presides over western history like a Holy Ghost.". Against this backdrop, Faragher looks at what the concept of the West means to us today and provides a reader's guide to the provocative new literature of the American frontier. Rereading these essays in the fresh light of Faragher's analysis brings new appreciation for the richness of Turner's work and an understanding of contemporary historians' admiration for Turner's commitment to the study of what it has meant to be American.

This hugely influential work marked a turning point in US history and culture, arguing that the nation’s expansion into the Great West was directly linked to its unique spirit: a rugged individualism forged at the juncture between civilization and wilderness, which – for better or worse – lies at the heart of American identity today. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

This book contains four essays by and about Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932), the Wisconsin-born historian whose ideas and writings have had such a profound impact upon the way Americans view their past, and their place in the world. It is a book not only for the scholar and teacher (who will find it both useful and incisive), but also for the mythic "general reader" who wants to broaden and enrich his aquaintanceship with Turner and the celebrated Frontier Thesis. In addition to essays by Turner and by Martin Ridge of The Huntington Library and the late Ray Allen Billington, the book is illustrated with photos from the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

American historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner have argued that the West has been the region that most clearly defines American democracy and the national ethos. Throughout the twentieth century, the "frontier thesis" influenced film and television producers who used the West as a backdrop for an array of dramatic explorations of America's history and the evolution of its culture and values. The common themes found in Westerns distinguish the genre as a quintessentially American form of dramatic art. In Hollywood's West, Peter C. Rollins, John E. O'Connor, and the nation's leading film scholars analyze popular conceptions of the frontier as a fundamental element of American history and culture. This volume examines classic Western films and programs that span nearly a century, from Cimarron (1931) to Turner Network Television's recent made-for-TV movies. Many of the films discussed here are considered among the greatest cinematic landmarks of all time. The essays highlight the ways in which Westerns have both shaped and reflected the dominant social and political concerns of their respective eras. While Cimarron challenged audiences with an innovative, complex narrative, other Westerns of the early sound era such as The Great Meadow (1931) frequently presented nostalgic visions of a simpler frontier era as a temporary diversion from the hardships of the Great Depression. Westerns of the 1950s reveal the profound uncertainty cast by the cold war, whereas later Westerns display heightened violence and cynicism, products of a society marred by wars, assassinations, riots, and political scandals. The volume concludes with a comprehensive filmography and an informative bibliography of scholarly writings on the Western genre. This collection will prove useful to film scholars, historians, and both devoted and casual fans of the Western genre. Hollywood's West makes a significant contribution to the understanding of both the historic American frontier and its innumerable popular representations.

Excerpt from Essays in American History, Dedicated to Frederick Jackson Turner Spontaneous movements are hard to explain. Per haps they need no explanation. Certainly a volume of essays on American history which in a large sense has written itself out of the love and respect of the authors for the scholar and friend to whom it is dedicated, needs but little by way of introduction to this generation of American students of history. To all others it preserves and trans mits, by its very existence, that part of a scholar's work which is hardest to measure and, record - his power to kindle his spirit and his love of scholarship in other men. Beyond the measure usually allotted to men of his own rank in scholarship and productive power, Professor Turner has manifested this most precious gift of the gods to the teachers of men. The office of president of the American Historical Association is a recognition by the larger constituency of American scholars in his chosen field of the permanent contributions of Professor Turner to the literature of that discipline. It has seemed to the narrower circle of those who, as students, have felt the stimulation of his personality, who have tasted at first hand of the fruits of his learning, and under his guidance have learned the methods of the craft, that there could be no more proper occasion than his presidency of this society and no more fitting form than this volume for acknowledging their obligations to him in whose workshop they learned the methods by which historical truth is sought. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Log cabins and wagon trains, cowboys and Indians, Buffalo Bill and General Custer. These and other frontier images pervade our lives, from fiction to films to advertising, where they attach themselves to products from pancake syrup to cologne, blue jeans to banks. Richard White and Patricia Limerick join their inimitable talents to explore our national preoccupation with this uniquely American image. Richard White examines the two most enduring stories of the frontier, both told in Chicago in 1893, the year of the Columbian Exposition. One was Frederick Jackson Turner's remarkably influential lecture, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"; the other took place in William "Buffalo Bill" Cody's flamboyant extravaganza, "The Wild West." Turner recounted the peaceful settlement of an empty continent, a tale that placed Indians at the margins. Cody's story put Indians—and bloody battles—at center stage, and culminated with the Battle of the Little Bighorn, popularly known as "Custer's Last Stand." Seemingly contradictory, these two stories together reveal a complicated national identity. Patricia Limerick shows how the stories took on a life of their own in the twentieth century and were then reshaped by additional voices—those of Indians, Mexicans, African-Americans, and others, whose versions revisit the question of what it means to be an American. Generously illustrated, engagingly written, and peopled with such unforgettable characters as Sitting Bull, Captain Jack Crawford, and Annie Oakley, The Frontier in American Culture reminds us that despite the divisions and denials the western movement sparked, the image of the frontier unites us in surprising ways.